Palestinian Militants - Involvement of Governments

Involvement of Governments

Israeli officials and other political figures have harshly criticized what they regard as Palestinians inciting violence against Jews and Israel.

Palestinian Authority TV has been accused of glorifying terror. In 2011, Israeli PM Benyamin Netanyahu stated that the incitement promulgated by the Palestinian Authority was destroying Israel’s confidence, and he condemned what he regarded as the glorification of the murderers of the Fogel family in Itamar on PA television. The perpetrator of the murders had been described as a "hero" and a "legend" by members of his family, during a weekly program.

Isi Leibler wrote in the Jerusalem Post that Mahmoud Abbas and his chief negotiator Saeb Erekat deny Israel’s right to exist and promote vicious hatred against Jews, in statements made in Arabic. He claimed that the state-controlled Palestinian media praised the murders committed by Palestinians. Abbas al-Sayed who perpetrated the Passover suicide attack at the Park Hotel in Netanya which killed 30 civilians was described by Abbas as a “hero” and “symbol of the Palestinian Authority.”

Following the Itamar massacre and a bombing in Jerusalem, 27 US senators sent a letter requesting the US Secretary of State to identify the administration's steps to end Palestinian incitement to violence against Jews and Israel that they said was occurring within the "Palestinian media, mosques and schools, and even by individuals or institutions affiliated with the Palestinian Authority."

The United Nations body UNESCO stopped funding a children's magazine sponsored by the Palestinian Authority that commended Hitler's killing of Jews. It deplored this publication as contrary to its principles of building tolerance and respect for human rights and human dignity.

Palestinian Media Watch reported that the Palestinian Authority spent more than $5 million a month paying salaries to Palestinians and Israeli Arabs imprisoned in Israel for terror crimes. They also stated that groups in a summer camp for children sponsored by PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad were named after militants: Dalal Mughrabi, who led the Coastal Road Massacre; Salah Khalaf, head of Black September that carried out the Munich Massacre; and Abu Ali Mustafa, the general secretary of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine who perpetrated many attacks. Saddam Hussein, the leader of Iraq, donated $25,000 to the families of suicide bombers, and $10,000 to the families of Palestinian civilians killed by the Israeli military.

After Israel agreed to hand over the bodies of dead Palestinian suicide bombers and other militants as part of a goodwill gesture to PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas to help the peace process, the Palestinian Authority planned a national rally to honour them and to provide full military funerals. The bodies included the suicide bombers that perpetrated the bus bombing in Jerusalem’s Shmuel Hanavi neighborhood which killed twenty-three people, many of them children, and the attacker in the Cafe Hillel bombing. Israel will also return the remains of the bombers that committed the bombings on two buses in Beersheba in 2004 killing 16 people, the Stage night club bombing, the attack on the open-air Hadera market as well as the attackers of the Savoy Hotel in Tel Aviv who killed eight hostages. The Palestinian Authority and Hamas both planned official ceremonies and PA president Abbas attended a ceremony at his Muqataa compound. Prisoners Affairs Minister Qaraqi called on Palestinians for a day of celebration. The rally in honor of the dead will be attended by PA President Mahmoud Abbas, PLO leaders, and families of the dead militants. The dead are considered martyrs by Palestinians, but viewed as terrorists by Israelis.